Anti-capitalism Videos

2 Videos about Student Solidarity Action in NYC on 11/19/09. a one minute piece about the attack of the march by the police and a three minute video about the actual action. The full Contextual Video is also available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly96pnN2KK0 The Short Video is also available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KPA3N7josQ

Quilombo Arte Presents OTHERGROUND all stars showcase Bocafloja, Para la Gente (PLG), Guerrilla Queenz, Poetic S, and Machetero at the Watsonville Brown Beret's Art Space.

This audio was recorded at the Dublin meeting the night before this Cork meeting. There are two seperate files, the first is a brief introduction to the WSM, the second is the recording of the introduction and the talk. Audio 1: What is the WSM A 3 minute introduction to the WSM by Alan Audio 2: Social struggles in South Africa The notes below are a very rough guide to what is being talked about, they are not a transcript and may skip over significant sections Introduction - Johnny Zabalaza formed 1st May 2003 from various organizations. After apartheid the ANC focused on courting big business and ignoring the needs of the working class. Jonathan Two points to the talk 1. Dispel illusions that exist around liberation 2. Drum up support for social struggles Group of 30 or 40 armed men attacked Kennedy Road informal settlement and destroyed shacks of the Abahlali shack dwellers movement. Police refused to intervene. Gang of armed men attacked the meeting killing 3 with more dying later, a couple of attackers also killed. Next day the police arrested members of the KR development committee, 5-7 more arrested over the following days. All denied bail. Attack orchestrated by local members of ANC branch, it’s not known at what level the police were involved in the attack. The attacks recall the state sponsored terror of the 1980's. To set the context I'm going to got back 100 years in radical South African history to the early syndicalist and anarchy syndicalist history if the 1880's. Established the first multi racial organizations like the Industrial Workers of Africa (modeled on the IWW). The first Community party formed in 1920 was extra parliamentary and internationalist, the first Moscow aligned CP set up following years. The CP aligned itself with the ANC and was bigger for a good number of years, the CP was following the two stage theory of national democratic revolution. Mandela said in 56 that the aim of the ANC was to create a black bourgeoisie. During the 70's and 80's there was a massive escalation in workers and student militancy against apartheid, the ANC had virtually no influenced in these popular struggles of the black working class. The unions through COSATU came to accept the two stages theory. Mass insurrections began in 1984 again with little ANC influence but this changed by the end of the 1990's as the ANC gained control of the United Democratic Front. Prior to this you had a huge and militant working class involved in strikes alongside the militant student and community movement. The boom of the 1980's was based on the super exploitation of the black working class in mining but sanction mean it was losing access to international markets and there wasn't an internal market due to the super exploitation. This economic decline along with the insurrectionary workers movement led the white capitalist class to enter into negotiations leading to the end of apartheid. Secret negotiations ran from the 1980's and by 1993 the ANC signed an agreement with the IMF leading to its election in 1994 in the first democratic election. Its economic policies were continuous with those of the old Botha regime. They had promised one million jobs but in the first ten years a million lost their jobs. The first big strike was in 1999 of municipal workers and the Anti-Privatization Forum was launched at Wits University. In 2001 the APF was a federation of community organizations, single issue social movement and campaigns fighting against privatization, evictions etc. There was a struggle against electricity cuts off as the state tried to collect outstanding bills from the apartheid issue bill strike. Battles were won but the campaigns went into decline afterwards. Another significant struggle was that against water meters. State has tried to break backbone of New Social Movements by using apartheid era legislations against gatherings of more than 15 people. Part of the strategy is to break the social movements financially by making arrests and forcing them to raise lots of bail, activists have also been tear gassed in police cells. Police Community Forums are used to spy on social movement activists. Zuma as elected this year, he is a conservative, openly homophobic Zulu nationalist. There have been attacks on immigrants and gays and lesbians and moves to sweep back progressive gains. Legitimate discontent is being re-directed against scapegoats leading to rampages against immigrants with 60 people being killed and 100's of thousands fleeing the country. The Shack Dwellers Movement predicted that these attacks against immigrants would be followed by internal ethnic conflict which is what happened on Kennedy Road. They implemented a 10pm curfew on Sheeben's to avoid ethnic conflict. For next years FIFA world cup the government is clearing the city centers of 'undesirables' as part of a program of gentrification, Abahlali were mobilizing against this which is part of the reason they were targeted. There is a grave danger to social movements and working class organization. The recession has hit South Africa hard providing an excuse for Zuma's failure to deliver on his promises. Community based revolts and strikes have escalated in the last couple of months but they tend to challenge corrupt councilors rather than the economic policies.

This audio was recorded at the Dublin meeting the night before this Cork meeting. There are two seperate files, the first is a brief introduction to the WSM, the second is the recording of the introduction and the talk. Audio 1: What is the WSM A 3 minute introduction to the WSM by Alan Audio 2: Social struggles in South Africa The notes below are a very rough guide to what is being talked about, they are not a transcript and may skip over significant sections Introduction - Johnny Zabalaza formed 1st May 2003 from various organizations. After apartheid the ANC focused on courting big business and ignoring the needs of the working class. Jonathan Two points to the talk 1. Dispel illusions that exist around liberation 2. Drum up support for social struggles Group of 30 or 40 armed men attacked Kennedy Road informal settlement and destroyed shacks of the Abahlali shack dwellers movement. Police refused to intervene. Gang of armed men attacked the meeting killing 3 with more dying later, a couple of attackers also killed. Next day the police arrested members of the KR development committee, 5-7 more arrested over the following days. All denied bail. Attack orchestrated by local members of ANC branch, it’s not known at what level the police were involved in the attack. The attacks recall the state sponsored terror of the 1980's. To set the context I'm going to got back 100 years in radical South African history to the early syndicalist and anarchy syndicalist history if the 1880's. Established the first multi racial organizations like the Industrial Workers of Africa (modeled on the IWW). The first Community party formed in 1920 was extra parliamentary and internationalist, the first Moscow aligned CP set up following years. The CP aligned itself with the ANC and was bigger for a good number of years, the CP was following the two stage theory of national democratic revolution. Mandela said in 56 that the aim of the ANC was to create a black bourgeoisie. During the 70's and 80's there was a massive escalation in workers and student militancy against apartheid, the ANC had virtually no influenced in these popular struggles of the black working class. The unions through COSATU came to accept the two stages theory. Mass insurrections began in 1984 again with little ANC influence but this changed by the end of the 1990's as the ANC gained control of the United Democratic Front. Prior to this you had a huge and militant working class involved in strikes alongside the militant student and community movement. The boom of the 1980's was based on the super exploitation of the black working class in mining but sanction mean it was losing access to international markets and there wasn't an internal market due to the super exploitation. This economic decline along with the insurrectionary workers movement led the white capitalist class to enter into negotiations leading to the end of apartheid. Secret negotiations ran from the 1980's and by 1993 the ANC signed an agreement with the IMF leading to its election in 1994 in the first democratic election. Its economic policies were continuous with those of the old Botha regime. They had promised one million jobs but in the first ten years a million lost their jobs. The first big strike was in 1999 of municipal workers and the Anti-Privatization Forum was launched at Wits University. In 2001 the APF was a federation of community organizations, single issue social movement and campaigns fighting against privatization, evictions etc. There was a struggle against electricity cuts off as the state tried to collect outstanding bills from the apartheid issue bill strike. Battles were won but the campaigns went into decline afterwards. Another significant struggle was that against water meters. State has tried to break backbone of New Social Movements by using apartheid era legislations against gatherings of more than 15 people. Part of the strategy is to break the social movements financially by making arrests and forcing them to raise lots of bail, activists have also been tear gassed in police cells. Police Community Forums are used to spy on social movement activists. Zuma as elected this year, he is a conservative, openly homophobic Zulu nationalist. There have been attacks on immigrants and gays and lesbians and moves to sweep back progressive gains. Legitimate discontent is being re-directed against scapegoats leading to rampages against immigrants with 60 people being killed and 100's of thousands fleeing the country. The Shack Dwellers Movement predicted that these attacks against immigrants would be followed by internal ethnic conflict which is what happened on Kennedy Road. They implemented a 10pm curfew on Sheeben's to avoid ethnic conflict. For next years FIFA world cup the government is clearing the city centers of 'undesirables' as part of a program of gentrification, Abahlali were mobilizing against this which is part of the reason they were targeted. There is a grave danger to social movements and working class organization. The recession has hit South Africa hard providing an excuse for Zuma's failure to deliver on his promises. Community based revolts and strikes have escalated in the last couple of months but they tend to challenge corrupt councilors rather than the economic policies.

During Noam Chomsky's recent visit to Ireland five members of the Workers Solidarity Movement met him over breakfast to talk over a range of issues from Palestine to the capitalist crisis to social partnership to Iran to Obama and the US Labour Movement. Notes on the discussion are below followed by the audio recording itself.

During Noam Chomsky's recent visit to Ireland five members of the Workers Solidarity Movement met him over breakfast to talk over a range of issues from Palestine to the capitalist crisis to social partnership to Iran to Obama and the US Labour Movement. Notes on the discussion are below followed by the audio recording itself.

Paramilitary repression and police brutality continue unabated on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border after three years of the assassinations of Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes in Oaxaca, Mexico and Fong Lee in Minneapolis, MN

Recording of a WSM branch education that looks at 'what is class' and outlines many of the different classifications that have been used before asking whether this is right approach to the question at all. Followed by a brief discussion of class in relation to Joe Duffy phone ins demanding a public sector pay cut.

Bay Area residents attempted a citizen's arrest of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, while he gave a speech to the World Affairs Council in San Francisco on 22 October 2009. Twenty-two people were arrested for challenging Olmert directly and demanding he be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Olmert has faced protests at Tulane University, University of Kentucky and the University of Chicago.

In 2007 Blackwater hires launched a massacre in the heart of Baghdad, turning a crossroads of traffic into a bucket of blood. The incident fueled anti- U.S. insurgency and splashed egg on the face of US puppet and Iraqi Prime Minister, Nur al-Malid, who demanded that the company be expelled from Iraq. They're still there. Any lost contracts? Nope. Indeed, the Obama administration just announced new contracts with Blackwater (under its new corporate name, XE)

Sweet Crude is a new documentary about the Niger Delta of Nigeria -- the humanitarian crisis and environmental devastation in the wake of 50 years of oil extraction, the history of nonviolent protest, the emergence of an armed resistance, and the sensationalistic and inaccurate reporting of U.S. mainstream media. You can see this film Sunday Oct 18 at the Variety Screening Room, 582 Market Street (@2nd St., Hobart Building), SF. Film at 2:50 pm. Panel discussion 4:30. Free admission. The trailer is 3:17.

This film gives a journalist's account of the interactions between some European banks and Clearstream in Luxembourg which according to him are a safe haven for financial criminals [26 mins]

If you thought the policing of the G20 in London was bad, "cop a look" at the tools police are using against peaceful demonstrators in "what we once knew as America." http://visionon.tv